Security Focus.com reports that Netizens with extreme privacy needs got a new tool for their cyber utility belts recently with the release of an application that lets users hide secret messages in virtually any executable computer program, without changing the program's size or affecting its operation.

The tool is called "Hydan," an old English word for the act of hiding something, and it's part of a research project by Columbia University computer science masters student Rakan El-Khalil, who showed off the program to a small group of open-source programmers and hackers gathered at the second annual CodeCon conference in San Francisco on Sunday.